Divorce rates are higher than you might think, new research finds

Divorce isn’t going away, and it may be bigger than many previously thought.

The rate of divorce has only gone down 2.2 percent since 1980, as opposed to the previously reported 20 percent, according to Family Studies, which recently commented on a new research paper regarding divorce.

The paper, written by Sheila Kennedy and Steven Ruggles, shows that "when you control for the change in the age of the population between 1980 and today — the population of married men and women is considerably older now — the divorce rate has actually risen 40 percent," writes Family Studies reporter Kay Hymowitz. "By these measures, after a brief pause in the recessionary year of 2009, the divorce rate peaked in 2011."

According to the paper by Kennedy and Ruggles, young people aren’t suffering from the same high divorce rates as their babyboomer parents. But the answer to that may be in the facts about cohabiting. Younger people are forgoing marriage altogether and simply cohabiting and are marrying later, which comes with its own challenges.

"Fifty-two percent of cohabiting men between ages 18 and 26 are not 'almost certain' that their relationship is permanent. Moreover, a large minority (41 percent) of men report that they are not 'completely committed' to their live-in girlfriends," according to a paper by sociologists Michael Pollard and Kathleen Mullan Harris, which Wilcox cites.